Tour of California

Team BH-USA headed west for a brief reprieve from the Chicago/Wisco winter and some early season NRC racing experience. We all had a smooth journey and safely made it to our wonderful host home in Santa Rosa, CA friday night.

(Crossing the bridge from San Francisco towards our host housing in Santa Rosa.)


Saturday morning arrived quickly and we loaded up our rental vehicle with shiny new bikes and headed south to San Jose for our first race of the year. Given that we have been training indoors most of the winter, this would be not only our first race of the season, but one of our first times outside this season. We were all excited to finally get out -- and the weather looked like it was going to be nice -- 50's and sunshine -- perfect for racing!
The fields were stacked this weekend with top pro teams, various national champions, and world championship participants. We knew that the races would not be easy -- especially given that our team is still in pre-season training mode. But we were excited to get some top racing experience under our belt and to hopefully come away with some lessons learned as we look forward to training for the season ahead.
(Warming up, trying to stay warm, and figuring out how to ride "bot dots" safely!)

Saturday's race was a good step towards these goals. While we didn't go away with a podium (nor did we expect to), we raced well, attempted to make a break, and had a couple solid finishes in the top half of the pack -- Devon and Kristen were 24 and 25 out of over 60 riders. We all felt excited about finally racing together and realize we have a lot of potential for the season ahead.
Sunday's race was the women's tour of California Criterium. Once again, the starting line was packed with top teams from around the world.



(Kristen, trying to stay dry before the start of the race.)

Unfortunately, the weather was not very nice to us and we stood shivering in the cold and rain waiting for the starting gun to go. The race started off fast and furious. We were all a bit timid in the rain because our route was covered in "bot-dots" -- instead of using paint to line the roads in CA, somebody (surely a not a biker) thought it would be a good idea to cover the road in raised dots which go "KABUMP kabump" as you ride over them.

(Devon, getting ready to go!)

The race had some ups and downs for all of us. The downs included Madeline and Anne getting stuck behind a crash, Devon getting a flat with 5 laps to go (which was too late for a free lap and thus ended her race). The ups included a strong finish for Kristen - 33rd out of almost 90 riders, Devon almost making the main break, and all of us coming out of the race crash free!

(Devon in the field)

(Kristen in the field)

(Kristen got us a meeting with Phil Liggett, cause she's the best team manager ever!)

The races were a great taste of top level racing and left us with lessons learned and excitement for the racing season ahead. Now we have a week to train as a team in the (hopefully) warm weather -- we are all looking forward to lots of riding! Especially on our new BH bikes -- we all love the way they ride.
(Watching the men's tour come through.)

They looked just as miserable as we had been just a few hours before. But it was really neat to see our favorites like Boonen, Sastre, Levi, Lance, Hincapie, and many others.